Take a castle wall, remove the parapet, punch out few stones, add some glass windows and door in the openings, a steel fire door for everybody’s safety, paste on two royal blue awnings, and, finally, trim it with two “Victorian” lamps, and you get this building at 323 N. Delaware…
Prior to the late 1930s, this lot was occupied by a former house used by the Edna Keller funeral home. That was replaced by this building [edit: this building may still be the house behind that facade], originally used as a store, with an auto repair shop in the back. Based on the attempt at style, this facade probably replaced the original in the 1960s. Not sure what the original looked like, but it hardly could’ve have been any worse than this.
[Dawn Mitchell, of the Indianapolis Star, was kind enough to share the following notes and photo with us]
Sept. 1, 1948, Hundreds of Indianapolis 25-year-old draft eligibles waiting to register for the country’s second peacetime draft lined up around the block to enter the Marion County draft headquarters at 342 Massachusetts Ave – this the end of the line!
325 N. Delaware was vacant at the time of this photo and was eventually torn down and the site is now the Indy Musicians Local. Indiana Carburetor and Brake Co. occupied the white building at 323 N. Delaware (which appears to be a former residence). That nice white brick structure looks much nicer than the building now! Both of the older houses were torn down and now used as a parking lot for Stout Shoes. The white building to the right is the former Eddy Radio Service and is now the expanded portion of the Front Page Sports Bar.
